Laughing Zen and Other Stories of the Path

The title of the play is Laughing Zen and Other Stories of the Path, but it’s tempting to suggest the latter portion be revised to Other Stories off the (Beaten) Path, given the wandering life and exotic encounters of the play’s viewpoint character, Ed Shaw.The original script, by former Midtown resident Steve O’Mara, traces Shaw’s life, from his scary childhood with less-than-nurturing parents in the industrial underbelly of Middle America on through his encounter with a female impersonator and into New York. It’s there, during the heyday of the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960s, that someone hands Shaw a copy of one of Alan Watts’ Zen books, which Shaw begins read—appropriately enough—while tending bar in a club.

Other scenes find Shaw hanging out in places like San Francisco or India. In another scene, he’s smoking a joint on the back of a military transport ship loaded with Korean soldiers, bound for service in the Vietnam War. They end up comparing what constitutes appropriate behavior among straight men—Korean culture allowing a lot more arms-around-the-shoulders physical contact than the American norm. (This emerges as one of the show’s best scenes.)

It’s a wanderer’s life, and that makes for a meandering play, though O’Mara, who adapted the script from Shaw’s autobiographical writings, manages to sustain enough of a thread to give the piece a sense of shape. Director Janis Stevens uses the sparse set—a table, two chairs, a canvas bag of the sort seamen carry and a pair of boards symbolizing railroad tracks—and subdued lighting to good effect.

Actor Derek Byrne (a tall, thin guy who recently gave a memorable performance as the Big Indian in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest up in Sutter Creek) connects with a mix of natural curiosity, restless intelligence and earthy enjoyment of spontaneous events. However, he doesn’t quite fill up the viewer’s consciousness the way Shelandra Goss did in Marriage of Saints (the previous portion of the Sacramento Solo Festival). Some missed lighting cues also marred the performance. But those who find the above description of Shaw’s life intriguing probably will want to check it out.

Laughing Zen and Other Stories of the Path plays Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the California Stage, 1723 25th Street (between Q and R streets); $10-$12; (916) 451-5822. Through March 16.

—J.H.